This is the UK400 Club Rare Bird Alert highlighting all records of avian interest and published in association with Rare Bird Alert Pagers and utilising additional information gleaned from the Regional Birdlines, BirdGuides, local email groups and individual observers

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Saturday, 25 June 2016

One bout of abuse after another - that has been the response on my twitter feed since the British people overwhelmingly (by over 1.25 million) decided to LEAVE the European Union during Thursday's referendum vote. I make no secret of the fact that I am extremely right wing in my political views and anybody that knows me personally would be well aware of that. However, it's my lack of support for the EU Birds Directive that seems to be getting up people's goat. I have already explained much of the reasoning's behind this on my facebook page but what gets me, is the vitriol coming from those with an invested interest in supporting a REMAIN position. Many of these moaning birdwatchers are on the EU payroll, getting grossly overpaid by up to £340 per day for conducting surveys involving wildfarms, solar farms, new roads, HS2 and other infrastructure projects. EU demands unnecessarily that Great Crested Newt surveys should be conducted everywhere so that they can be moved elsewhere and it is literally 'money for old rope'. Property developers and builders aren't interested one iota what natural habitats or creatures are being destroyed - they just have to be seen going through the motions and get the surveys done by a recognised or registered 'ecologist' - it's a complete con. For a while I got sucked in, working on HS2 surveys, but soon realised it was 'blood money', when developers and councillors didn't have any concern whatsoever for the rare bats and butterflies that fell within the route, the loss of Ancient Woodland and all of its Bluebells and Badger setts and the breeding Corn Buntings, Yellow Wagtails, European Turtle Doves, Tree Sparrows, Yellowhammers and Linnets I found and censused along the route. It was a traversty and I rapidly resigned. Plenty of people are throwing lists of achievements they claim are attributed to the EU legislation but little evidence of when the Commissioners actually applied that legislation - it's all a Red Herring. Did the RSPB, BTO, Wildlife Trusts, etc explain, for example, the success of EU legislation in preventing the shooting of migrating birds throughout the Mediterranean? Of course not! Did it explain or prevent the decision by the SNH to order the destruction of up to 5,800 Greenland Barnacle Geese on Islay each winter? Of course not! Did any of them attempt to prevent several restaurants from legally obtaining up to 2,500 eggs from nesting Black-headed & Mediterranean Gulls in the Solent? Of course not! Were efforts and legislation passed in order to prevent the decline of farmland birds throughout the EU region and a ban on the harvesting of European Turtle Doves? Of course not! And what of our seas? Were these conservation charities proud of the EU's record in maintaining the biodiversity and abundance of our sealife during these 43 years - I think not! And then there is the vexed issue of farm animal welfare...

Did any of these groups highlight what effect increased human population growth has on our wildlife Can we continue obliviously on without delimiting the ever-increasing volume of people. Are they of the opinion that the more houses, roads, factories, towns and cities there are in this country, the easier it becomes to feed and water ourselves, and make a countryside better for wildlife. Come on! Do these groups all deny that habitat loss is the principal cause of biodiversity loss and a catastrophic decline in abundance? Do they deny that habitat loss is principally caused by human activity and population increase? I see no mention of population growth in their promotional blurb, that's because they daren't talk about it, but more than happy to take the money and ignore the core issue. The referendum result shows that each of these conservation organisations, as well as all mainstream political parties, are living in denial of a basic fact which most ordinary tax-paying Brits have little difficulty in identifying and making a voting point on. These same ordinary people have no problem talking about it either, but the political class refuse to, and this mindset is supported by our wildlife organisations. Population growth adversely affects climate change too. The reality is, is that until human population growth is tackled, the planet will continue to suffer significant and irreversible declines in wildlife and ever increasing greenhouse emissions.

And so to the Referendum in question.....

If you take out the votes of Greater London, Scotland and Northern Ireland from the overall count, there was an overwhelming majority of people in England and Wales that voted in favour of quitting an undemocratic European Union. In fact the majority was so ginormous that it was easily able to dwarf the impressive majorities in favour of remaining in these three regions by well over one and a quarter million votes! Proof if ever needed that the great British public has finally woken up, completely ignoring the advice of their governments, both Tory and Labour, as well as the Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and the Greens.

There are genuine reasons for this -:

1) Northern Ireland is still driven with sectarian bigotry and voting there was highly influenced by religious/community belief rather than economic...

2) The greater Ireland is a major beneficiary of the EU and even though their economy has largely been ruined by the euro currency, an overhaul of housing and road infrastructure has seen a transformation of fortunes. It has a population deficit and thus shares little in common with the pressure on housing, congestion, environment that we here in England will experience

3) Scotland is another major beneficiary of EU aid and it is in their interest to Remain but how the SNP can both govern itself and hand over power to Brussels is beyond me. But again, Scotland largely benefits from massive open spaces, away from the conurbations of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and can easily sustain a marked arrival of new immigrants, unlike much of Southeast England, the Midlands and Northeast. However, the ability of Scotland to break away from the UK is greatly vexed, North Sea Oil values having evaporated to leave a somewhat cumbersome deficit. Furthermore, it will not be able to join the EU and keep the pound sterling - can't see to many Scots looking forward to the euro!

4) London is hugely multi-cultural and is an overcrowded, heavily congested, expensive, polluted metropolis alienated from the environment; it has an enormous housing and congestion crisis. The majority of people living there have no idea how much countryside is required to produce their food nor are they bothered.

About Me

I have been birding since 1969 but became obsessed with 'twitching' in 1974 and haven't looked back since. Have driven over 1.3 million miles in pursuit of rare birds in the UK, where to date I have recorded 588 species in Britain and Ireland. I also have a fascination for the Birds of the Western Palearctic, where I have currently recorded 880 of the 1,064 species ever recorded. I am widely travelled in North America, as well as in Africa and Asia, and have written at least 29 books on my chosen subject, including best-sellers ''Ultimate Site Guide to Scarcer British Birds' and 'Rare Birds in Britain 1800-1990'. Established the UK400 Club in 1981 to cater for the most obsessive of the British birding fraternity and now concentrate on online publishing, via the www.uk400clubonline.co.uk website. Record Birding achievements include recording 386 species in Britain & Ireland in 1996 and 627+ in the Western Palearctic in 2008